book and i said what about the industrial candidates? the best there is. the best areas. magnitudes better than corn or soy. it is a schedule one felony we are not even allowed to talk about it. >> from the 12th annual national book festival in washington, d.c., and interview and national your phone calls with "washington post" senior correspondent an associate editor, rajiv chandrasekeran. who discusses his book, "little america the war within the war it's about 20 minutes. naonal >> host: and we are back livel r at the national book festival here o in washington, d.c.. ds o this is the number one of two expa of coverage. ooe book festival was no and b willnded to two days and book tv will be live both days. if you would like to see the wae

full schedule, go to booktv.orge pleased to be joined with rajiv chandrasekaran, an associate editor at the was post, and most recently the author of this book, "little america" about the war in afghanistan. but where did the term little america come from? >> it came from a remarkable project in the 1950s, led by a team of american engineers, to develop parts of southern afghanistan to dig irrigation candles, build dams, in the very same terrain that the current troop surge unfolded in. back then, these american engineers decided to build a model town for themselves. right smack dab in the middle of the desert in the province. eight square blocks. four blocks by two blocks. instead of traditional afghan homes, big tall walls, they

built suburban style american homes, ramblers with white stucco walls. man cured front lawnsle them country's first and only code high -- co-ed high school, and a swimming pool where boys and girls could square together. and weekly square dances and a bar tender who could pull a mean gin and tonic. afghans looked at the model and said, that's fine for you americans. we don't want to live that way. but the afghans came up with the name for it, called it "little america" and that's where i got the title of the book because the grand development experiment, which failed to achieve its goals in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, in many ways was a parable of sources for the grand nation building our country has engaged in over there for the past decades. so i start my book with the

story of americans in afghanistan six decades ago, to set the stage for discussion of the troop surge. >> host: welling, the subtitle of your bikes the war within the war in afghanistan. what due you mean. >> guest: there wasn't just the war unfolding on the ground in afghanistan. as our government decided to surge more forces in there, to adopt a new strategy for trying to stabilize the country, i discovered that all of the key origins of our american bureaucracy fought amongst one another. we had wars within the pentagon. you would think if you were sending more troops to afghanistan, those troops would go the places that are most critical. the places the taliban were seeking to take over. the places most at risk to insurgent gains and potentially a takeover of that country.

instead, we wound up sending the first wave of new forces to a part of the country will relatively few people, and i discovered the answer was simply, tribal rivalries. not in afghanistan but in the pentagon. the first wave of troops were u.s. marines and they wanted to bring their own helicopters, their own logistics units and didn't want to work with u.s. army soldiers in the areas in and around the city of kandahar, and here was this tale of our own services fighting with each other instead of fighting in common purpose against the enemy. and the stories go on. there was internal fighting within the state department, within the u.s. agency for international development. in one other tale i recount in the book, we had some real serious infighting between president obama's own national security team and senior people at the state department over the whole question of, was it wise

to try to broach potential piece take the taliban? and we wound up spending 18 months fighting with one another in washington as opposed to uniting in common purpose to try to achieve the president's goal in the country. >> host: who is summer koy. >> guest: she is a young american woman who -- there she is on the bottom right there -- who has extensive foreign development experience and put her hand up to go to a afghanistan to try to rebuild the country to work for the u.s. agency for international development, and the south she'd be out there, able to work with afghanses, trying to pursue projects that would be helpful to the afghan people and support the overall american strategy for trying to stabilize the country. the problem was that when she got out to kabul. she was essentially a prisoner on the giant u.s. embassy compound.

she couldn't get authorization to drive out and about, in kabul. was restricted in terms of her ability to meet with the afghans. found herself asked to sort of sit in an office building and a cubicle, much like she could have been in washington, drafting memos and cables, as opposed to getting out and doing the development work she wanted to do. she provides this wonderful insight into just how our surge of civilians that were supposed to go there and help rebuild the afghan government, how that serge was squandered because most of these people wound enstaying in the embassy compound doing paperwork as opposed to getting their fingernails dirty in the field trying to do the difficult work of building governments, providing meaningful reconstruction assistance to the afghan people. >> host: rajiv chandrasekaran

just annoyanced the surge is over. all those troops, we're down to 68,000 americans in afghanistan. how much was spent, what grade would you give it? >> guest: i'd give the surge a c-minus, and -- maybe even a d. i'm not sure -- a c minus means it technically passed, and in my book it wasn't a pass. it was a failure, and before i explain why i should note we probably spent about a quarter trillion dollars on the surge. we spent $100 billion there last year and 100 plus billion the you're before. when you add it up the troop surge cost us north of $250 billion there. an enormous amount of money. at a time when we're facing real economic crisis here at home. the idea was woe send in more forces to stabilize broad

sectors of the country, to train the army, rebuild the afghan government, and we finally succeed in doing what we should have down in 2001 and 2002 when, unfortunately, we took our eye off the ball in afghanistan to invade iraq. the problem was in 2009, the situation in afghanistan was simply too far again, and we ahave no eye assumed that president hamid karzai were partners with us. they were far from partners. they were working at cross-purposes. the neighboring country of pakistan, we assumed the pakistans would crack down on the sanctuaries of they never did. the taliban i still allowed humongous opts of freedom of movement in pakistan. we assumed that the afghan military would stand up and really take charge of security in areas. well, as we've seep from news

reports, seemingly every day, afghan soldiers are now focused on shooting american troops in many cases as opposed to defending their country. and so we've just had a pretty horrible turn of events there. has security improved in some areas? yes. i want to be very clear on that. when we send our men and women in uniform to places, they do good things, and security has gotten better in pockets of southern afghanistan. but will those gains be sustained? will the afghans be able to take the baton from our troops as they come home. the surge forces that come home this summer the additional troops coming home next year and the year after. will the afghans do what is necessary to make the blood and treasure we spend thread worth it? i don't believe so. >> host: rajiv chandrasekaran is our get. an associate editor with the washington post. this is his second book. his first, about iraq.

202, you can see the numbers on the screen. divided by time seasons. so if you want to participate in our conversation go ahead and dial in now and we will begin with a call from hunter in loveland, colorado. high, hunter. >> caller: yeah. i was wondering if he got the reasons for the war was an establishment of a democratic government or more of a western capitalistic economic system? >> guest: well, certainly when the taliban was overthrown in 2001, the bush administration wanted to build a more democratic government in afghanistan. that was certainly not hard to get more democratic than the taliban, who have no great love for democracy, and the government hat has been created there is a democratic system. it is, however, beset by corruption and cronyism and incompetence and a lot of backroom dealing and a number of

fairly undemocratic despicable war lords have been brought in, in positions of power. so, it's hard to look at the government there and say it's a true democracy, that it's a clean democracy. it certainly is better than what the afghans had in the past, but the incompetence of that government, the corruption, really does bedevil our effort to provide meaningful efforts at reconstruction and development in the country. it's been a huge impediment for the u.s. surge strategy over there, and it's unfortunately the real victims in this are the afghan people, who find themselves often victimized by their government instead of helped by their government. when people who live in remote villages and valleys often find themselves shaken down for bribes by police officers instead of being helped by the police officers. being forced to pay judges to hear cases as opposed to being expecting that they will get impartial and speedy justice. the government just doesn't work for the people there,

unfortunately. >> host: kell y, cottage grove, oregon, go ahead with your question or comments for our author. rajiv chandrasekaran. >> caller: yes, hello. >> guest: hi. >> caller: i just wanted to say, thank you. i've been wondering about this for a long time. in fact i was just talking yesterday with someone. if we took all the money spent on the war and just helped the people, you know, of course, one person's idea of help is different. i would have thought that build them nice houses and excellent infrastructure, whole nine yard and probably come out saving a lot of money. but apparently that's not what they wanted. i just want to say, thank you. you've answered a lot of questions in the back of my head that you don't read about in the local media. >> guest: well, thank you for your comment. you know, i sort of joke with friends that at times, had we just flown a bunch of military cargo planes over the country

and push out big pallets filled with dollar bills we might have done more good than the billions of dollars that were spent through contractors, some contractors who hired expensive security guards and only a fraction of it actually got to the afghan people. look, i want to be clear. the afghan people need our help. the rate of malnutrition, illiteracy, infant mortality, it's off the charts in the country. they need modest, sustainable international help, and what we unfortunately tried to do doo during the troop surge was spend too much money too quickly. in 2010 we tried to spend -- we didn't do it all but we tried to spend, our government, $4 billion, that's with a b -- billion dollars on reconstruction in afghanistan, in one year. in one -- just in one little district in afghanistan, a place i visited many times. sort of a county-level type

place. we wind up trying to spend more money than the per capita income for every man, woman and child in the area. nose surprise i wound up exacerbating the very corruption we were trying to stop. >> what was the avipa program? >> guest: it was not successle and one of those programs that i was just alluding to there, where we were just trying to shovel the money into the country. so, in southern afghanistan, where the bulk of the troop surge unfolded, the economy's principally agricultural, most men do some sort of job related to agriculture. so the u.s. government concluded, rightly, that one key way to help the afghanistan people during the surge would be to assist them with farming, to try to provide them with some better seeds, some fertilizer,

in some cases tractors, try to improve what they were growing on their fields so you'd improve their livelihood and win their allegiant. that was a good idea. the problem was we tried to do too much of a good people. think of the program or think of southern afghanistan and the farmers there as a parched man on a hot day. ice water, givingal .. turned the fire hose on him, wounding him in the process. we tried to pour so much money in through the program it wound up being counterproductive. i it was trying to spend $300 million in just two provinces in one year. not surprisingly, we wind up just shoveling goods at the afghans. and what did they do? in some cases they took what we were giving them and drove it to the border to pakistan and sold it for cash because it was more than anybody could meaningfully

absorb. >> host: gary, in miami, go ahead with your question or comment for our guest on book tv. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. it's a pleasure to speak on c pan. i want to take issue with your crash-minus grading the surge. we sent to afghan as a result of -- 3,000 americans were killed. 2,000 were soldiers, at last count, have been killed in afghanistan. plus the 5,000 in iraq. so that leaves us with 7,000 americans dead since 9/11. how do you justify that as a c minus? putting aside all of the terrible financial wasted finances on these wars, putting aside that. just in terms of american lives, how can you say it's a c-minus when we've -- osama bin laden,

if he is smiling somewhere in hell right now if he is able to smile, because we have done ourselves in by perpetuating this war when it should have been finished in 2001. >> host: all right, gary, got the point. >> guest: yeah, so look, i said c-minus initially, but probably more -- as i was noting earlier, probably closer to a d. i certainly wouldn't give is a passing grade. look, it's very true. we've lost more than 7,000 americans on the battlefields of iraq and afghanistan since 9/11, plus nearly 3,000 americans who died in the towers and the pentagon. look, had we not surged and left afghanistan the way it sort of was when president obama took office, i think we -- far greater likelihood the taliban would be controlling larger part

office the country and may well be in a position or well have been in a position to have swept into kabul and other major cities over there. so, the surge did buy some breathing room. but it was advertised as an awful lot more than that. so i can see some benefits there. we did push the taliban back in certain areas. we have started to build an afghan army. we have provided some services to the afghan people. so i can't look at this and say, we did nothing. we certainly did do something. the question is, the cost benefit analysis, and is everything that we've done at the cost of american lives, limbs, and billions of dollars, is that worth it when it comes to looking at the most core issue of american national security? certainly the death of osama bin laden, the evisceration of al qaeda at the mid-and senior ranks had nothing to do with the troop surge in afghanistan.

that's central intelligence agency's drone program in afghanistan. so we did some good there, but with all that good work, did the price in american lives and dollars? and i don't think so. >> host: last call for our guest comes from mike in syracuse, new york. >> caller: hi. thank you for taking my call. my question is, what do you think that the war in afghanistaning going to do to the delicate turmoil of the situation that has been going on for almost 2,000 years over there? >> guest: well, look. there's been an awful lot of tribal factional fighting that has occurred in afghanistan, as you note, for centuries. our presence there isn't going to end that. and in fact, as our troops start coming home, you'll once again start to see various ethnic groups, various tribal

alliances, starting to jockey for power. much as they have over the previous many, many years. the idea that somehow you can create this post tribal, big tent government, that will pacify the country, i think, is a bit of a dream. we will continue to have a messy, chaotic future there for some time to come, unfortunately. >> host: when were you over in afghanistan to write this book? >> guest: i traveled there initially in early 2009. i made 15 trips from 2009 through this year. many of them several weeks at a time. i traveled all over the country, but i emphasized me time in the south. i spent a lot of of time with our military forces, with u.s. marines in helmund province, with army soldiers in kandahar, american diplomats and reconstruction workers, and with

the afghan people. traveled around by helicopter, by mine resistant truck, pickup truck, by donkey. >> host: were request you able to get out on your own? fortunately, though aim american, i'm blessed with a dark skin and this beard. >> host: did it make a difference? >> guest: it did. allowed me to blend in ways that would be difficult for you in kandahar. >> host: rajiv chandrasekaran, the war for afghanistan, he has been our guest here on book >> it's in the northeast part of

afghanistan. it can want be more remote. it's all where god lost his shoe, it goes nowhere, and it's up near the himalayas so getting up there is hard, flying helicopters is hard, only way in is by foot or helicopter so tries to get there initially to plan the mission was tough. you know, what they were up there to do is was to after a high value target, and the guy was a hague commander. they are a terrorist group essentially with some association with al-qaeda, a truce with the taliban, but they are nasty characters. there's a lot of foreign fighters, guys that are not really there to fight against -- to fight for afghanistan or the group, but they are mercenaries.

they were pressing people into fighting, and he was rumored to have surface to air missile and stockpiling guns and credited with a series of ambushes in the valley that caught the attention of some of the commanders so they decided they had to go up to the valley to get him and take care of the network because it was becoming, you know, he was able to export a lot of the violence from this safe haven so thed why was to get him and take care of the safe haven. what they reason into is not only were they fighting the geography because it was such a hard place to get to, but they were fighting some of the restrictions placed on you in afghanistan. i'm sure we've seen the news; right? you know, night raids are highly regulated, who controls the battle space is highly regulated, takes a long time to plan a mission, and one of the things we reason into in

planning the mission is how to get there, what the helicopters could do, and what and when and where they could go. essentially, what they came back with was the idea they were going to fly into the valley, land in the valley, unload soldiers, andñmwq' fly off. the team initially wanted to fly us to the top the valley, the village and rappel out, and we fly off. because of restrictions and what the pilots were comfortable doing, they ended up having to settle for this mission which was to land in the valley and unload troops which anyone who knows any kind of basic image, to fight uphill is never a good idea. you never want to do it. that's infantry 101. if you can take the high ground, you want it. what commanders had to reconcile where was to place the risk, top of the vim lag or in the ground

and have guys hopefully get up the hill before the bad guys found out. that was the sort of where the team was left on the morning of the mission which is where the book starts. they get up in the morning, and they know they have to do the mission. it's spring, in the mountains of afghanistan, the weather's already pushed the mission, delayed it once or twice, and they have a singing feeling. that feeling is one of the things that propelled this book and us because it's very rare that you get soldiers that have universal bad feelings like that and the candor to say not only do we have the bad feeling, but we said, look, we don't want to do the mission. that starts the book and starts them on a path that ultimately getting them in the ambush. that's critical what was mentioned in the book. you don't usually get soldiers that speak out about a plan, and

there was a captain, captain walton, who basically knew, and like other members in oda3336, knew there were flaws in the plan. you don't fight uphill, you try to have the elements of surprise. tactically, he knew it was unsound. he took the concerns to his commanders, and his commanders -- it was real important to do the mission. it was a really bad guy. he helped finance his men by this gem smuggling operation, and, in fact, what they later found out through the fbi and cia was that some of the gems showed up in, you know, in arizona. he was selling the gems to finance his whole, you know, his whole campaign, and, again, going back to the valley, captain and others on the team

knew tactically the plan was flawed. even though they knew that it was gnawed, knew there was uncredible danger, landing the helicopter at the bottom of the valley, climb to the top of the mountain where the compound where he was vonned by some of the -- surrounded by some of the best mercenaries in the world, these really trained mercenaries, fighting the soviets and for, you know, for that ten years during the 1980s. they still went to carry out this mission, and i think, kevin, you can describe about what happened when they landed. >> okay, so they take off from a base on the boarder, and they fly into the valley, and there's some concern at this point, obviously, but there's concern about the weather, a certain window to get in and out before the cloud cover came in.

they have to work quickly. if you can imagine landing in a helicopter and, you know, there was so much rubble and ice and ground was uneven. the helicopter couldn't land. guys jumped ten feet landing op rubble fields and some of them landed in this river that was running right through the middle of the landing zone. they get past that with no real major injuries, that, alone, is a feat. ten feet is the size of a basketball court, jump out of that into gravel, big boulders. they look up, and the valley -- the mountains surrounding the valley are higher than they imagined. they were just looking at satellite images. i can only equate it to standing in, you know, midtown manhattan and looking up by the buildings, surrounded by all sides, but just sheer cliffs, and they

consolidate the guys, walk towards the village, and when we say "villageñhr ," i don't know what you see in your head from an afghan village, but depending where you are, sometimes they are mud huts, but this village, and we use that loosely for this, was literally cut into the walls, stone houses, like castles stacked on top of each other lined up and around, and they were surrounded almost -- well not 360, but almost, with stone houses, and as they walk up, it takes awhile to find a path, but they get to the base of the hill, and the path pretty much cuts back and forth and zigzags up the hill, switchbacks as they head up. they -- so -- i know a lot of veterans, i met a few of you here, shaking your heads, you know that's bad. there's only one way up. you know it's a cul-de-sac of a